In the current office-equipment market, particularly where large corporate or institutional customers are involved, it is common to provide a large number of digital devices, such as printers, copiers, input scanners (as well as multifunction devices which combine these basic functions) which are interconnected over a network. The various devices communicate with each other as needed, through known methods such as internet protocol (IP), to move data relating to documents to be printed, copied, scanned to an electronic file, etc.
With particular regard to image input scanning, meaning the optical recording of hard-copy images and rendering of the resulting image data into a useable digital format, it has been common in the prior art to provide what can be called a “pull” model. For instance, in a “one-to-one” situation where a destination computer is in effect dedicated to a single scanning apparatus and vice-versa, the computer is first set up to expect image data based on the recorded images from the scanner at a particular port. Only then is image data made available by the scanner, and this image data is “pulled” as needed by the computer from the scanner. Such a model becomes problematic in a network context, where one scanner or a population of scanners is accessible to a population of computers: there is a question of directing images from a scanner to a particular destination computer on the network, especially if the scanner is potentially shared among a number of human users.
In the prior art, for input scanning in the network context, it has become familiar to use a “scan server” as an intermediary between one or more scanners and a population of possible destination computers. A diagram explaining the essentials of the use of a network server is shown as FIG. 1. The scan server 99 is a computer which is essentially always on, and which collects, at known locations in its memory, all image data submitted thereto from all scanners associated with it. The scanners 100, which can be stand-alone scanners or represent scanning functions of other devices, such as digital copiers, each send all image data recorded therein to a predetermined location on the disk of server 99. In turn, each of the population of possible destination computers, each of which is shown here as 200, must poll (either constantly, or when it is known that a particular user is looking for scanned image data) these predetermined locations on the disk of server 99, in effect waiting for the desired image data to arrive. This polling to the server 99 by any one of the computers 200 must typically take place remotely, using, for example, internet protocol. When the desired image data arrives, the destination computer “pulls” the data from the server's memory in a manner similar to the one-on-one model.
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus wherein a scanner may directly send image data to a particular destination computer on the network, without need of an intermediary scan server.